can't sleep without you here
by gins-potter
Summary: Because Ginny can't sleep when Harry works a late shift at the Ministry.


Harry Potter's entire body ached. Each movement was accompanied with a jolt of pain. He could feel a bruise forming on his thigh, a burn that was searing painfully on his bicep and his back was begging for a massage. He was too old for this, he decided firmly as he stumbled closer to the warm glow of home.

At nineteen, and having been out of school for over two years, most people his age were looking to leave home, if they hadn't already. But after everything they had been through, Harry, Ron and Hermione weren't all that keen to move out of the Burrow just yet. And as it turned out, Mrs Weasley, wasn't ready to let them go either and the disheveled, slightly lopsided home was still the one that greeted him after a long day at work.

As a junior auror, most would expect to be stuck behind a desk for years before they saw the light of day. But the state of upheaval the wizarding world was in after the war meant that Harry and Ron and the handful of others who had gone into the auror business had been shoved into the field much earlier than anyone was really happy with. And with the sudden promotion, their 9 to 5 days had become 7 to midnight; if they were lucky.

Leaving Ron behind, still struggling with his paperwork from the earlier raid, Harry stumbled home full well expecting everyone to be in bed with all the lights off. Which was why he was surprised when he shook of the disorientating feeling of apparating and looked up to see one lone light illuminating the kitchen window.

He stumbled through the overgrown yard, shaking off a stray garden gnome that clung to his boot and almost falling flat on his face when he tripped over one of the many pairs of shoes littering the doorstep and entered to find a familiar red-headed figure hunched over at the kitchen table. From the look of her, the fumes of the coffee on the table was the only thing keeping her awake.

"Gin?"

The woman in question blinked blearily at him, still half lost in thought as she had been for hours.

"What are you doing up, love? Oof-"

Harry was suddenly met with a sudden armful of flowery perfume and red-hair that invaded his senses; and his mouth. It took him only a few moments to realise the hands that clung to his uniform were trembling.

"Hey, hey," he murmured and rubbed a soothing hand up and down his girlfriend's back. He waited for her to speak, murmuring reassurances into her hair and trailing a comforting hand in nonsensical patterns.

Finally when her vice-like grip had loosened fractionally she seemed to recover the ability to speak. "I can't sleep without you here." The voice was small, like it was physically costing Ginny to speak the small admission aloud.

Harry hummed encouragingly, knowing from years experience suffering for the terrible ailment that sometimes the best way to get through it was to talk about it.

"I kept having these nightmares. That you're hurt somewhere and I can't get to you. And I couldn't wake up. And even when I did you weren't here. And I couldn't-"

"Hey shhh, I'm here I promise. I promise-"

"Don't." Her tone wasn't accusatory, surprisingly enough, rather pleading in it's intensity. "Don't promise to always be here 'cause we both know you can't honestly promise that."

"No I can't," Harry said slowly. "But I can promise to always try my best to get back to you."

The split-second of energy that had invigorated his girlfriend drained from her just as quickly and she slumped into his strong body. "Okay," she finally murmured. "I'll take that."

Carefully, Harry shifted Ginny's weight until she was settled under his arm and pressed into the long line of his side so he could start to guide them upstairs and into bed. The process was slow-going, both his and Ginny's tired bodies unresponsive to their commands, but eventually they made it to Ginny's third-floor room, Harry making a quick decision to follow her in. He would no doubt get a tongue lashing about it in the morning when Molly had discovered that he'd broken her one rule; in an effort to maintain the pretense of innocence had banned them sleeping in partners rooms. But judging from Hermione's empty bed and mussed sheets, she'd already slunk into Ron and Harry's shared room to wait for her boyfriend to come back.

Besides it was worth it to see Ginny's blinks eventually slow as she watched Harry undress, to feel the tension slowly bleed from her body as he slipped into the bed to curl around her, to sense the smile slipping onto her lips even as she drifted off to sleep. It was worth it to be with her like this, fingers wound tightly together and everything momentarily right in their small sliver of the world.


End file.
